/n
I worked with this carpenter for a few weeks. He needed some one to gofer stuff. In addition, because his health was failing, my job was to climb ladders and work on my hands and knees for him. Those two activities caused him considerable distress. Year after year of climbing and bending had taken it's toll on his legs and back.

I was perfect for the job. We were friends. I wanted to work, knew nothing about carpentry and delighted to get whatever wage he gave me, which turned out to be remarkably generous, and he knew that I would be cooperative and willing to learn.

I learned a lot about carpentry from Ron. He was an excellent craftsman. I learned that first of all, no matter how much one plans and prep's for a job, something is going to cause you to rethink and adjust those plans. You have to accommodate new realities at every turn. A rock ledge where the foundation has to go, a worker doesn't show up, a nail gun doesn't work, a board gets cut too short. Carpentry is really about problem solving.

Ron was excellent at problem solving. He was an highly successful engineer in his day and had the ability to find the simple solution, the one that's always hidden in plain sight from everyone. Occum's razor. The simple and most obvious solution is most likely the correct one.

Next I learned that despite one's best efforts and intents, that when you build something, there's always something that you did and regret doing, but you have to live with it. The foundation has been set, and if the foundation breaks, or cracks, or is not square, then everything after that will be affected by that. Even errors that are very minor in the scheme of things can have disastrous affect. You can cut a perfect 45 degree miter only to find that it doesn't fit smugly. The walls not perpendicular, or the joining miter, the one you or a mate cut, is 44.5 degrees. How do you fix that? Or a carefully placed small finish nail hammers in crooked, marring a very expensive 10 foot piece of wood trim. With no head on the nail, it has to be cajoled out, risking even more damage to the pristine wood. One stands there, trying to gouge a tiny 1/2 cent headless nail out of a piece of 30 dollar wood while the clock is ticking towards the next thing that has to be done on time so the next thing that has to be done on time can be done on time so that the client can have the gas guy come in so the painters can come so the carpet guys can lay the carpet on Tuesday at 2 o'clock. It's like that. Constant pressure.

In carpentry, one quickly gives up any notion of perfection. You just keep building up, despite every discouraging accident or error or obstacle and frustration and disappointment, you just keep building up. You build up. And he built up with an amazing composure that calmed everyone around him.

Like another carpenter I know about, Ron treated people, all people, just like that. He built up with an unconditional positive regard for everyone he knew and met. Even strangers.

Ron and I spent the last day of his life together in a room coaxing a half round piece of trim onto a window. He was rightfully proud of the work and wanted me to take a picture of the room, so I took his picture there by the window, the crowning piece of a beautiful airy side room that Ron and his crew had built from the ground up. Then we left for supper at my house.

I thought I had captured the last building up of something by Ron, the arch at the top of the window. It's not the last thing. After supper at my house, he left to chair a meeting at a prison.

We will never see the last of, nor all of, the building ups of this most amazing man.

/n
This was in the 80's. I drove by a non-descript office building in town that had a shingle proclaiming in no uncertain terms a promise to STOP SMOKING!GUARANTEED! Even though my past liaisons with hypnotists and faith healers and psychics had accomplished nothing more than emptying my wallet leaving me short of cigarette money again, I was determined to become, as they say nowadays, "smoke free". After some careful thought , I turned around at the next light and headed back to the building."Let's see what they got anyway" I thought. Waves of self assuring rationalizations swept over me, assuring me that I had learned my lessons regarding the efficacy of having someone or something quit smoking for me, not to mention being suckered in again. I parked and went in. Let's see what they got.

The salesman explained that his organization used this here aversion therapy with remarkable success in the past treating all sorts of malady's, up to and including the dreaded scourge of alcoholism. Invented by relative of the guy who invented something to do with shaving, maybe a better razor blade, the premise was beguilingly simple. Just do so much of the certain something that you don't want to do no more then eventually you get so sick of it you don't want to do it anymore, period! Why didn't I think of that?

The salesman cum scientist went on to explain that in the case of breaking the smoking habit, this modality was called for. Subjects were to be enclosed in a small room, roughly the dimensions of a telephone booth.. In front of them was a small window whose only function was to provide some relief from the claustrophobia. Under this, a small shelf held a large bowl filled to the brim with rotting stinking cigarette butts, the effluence of past sessions. Next to that was a pile of fresh cigarettes, menthol ones at that, just to make the experience even more heinous than it was about to be. The subject entered the booth , sat in front of the bowl and, on cue from the tinny voice coming from the microphone behind him, grabbed one of the fresh cigarettes from the pile and lit up. The subject had a set amount of time to finish smoking a set amount of cigarettes. The time/number relationship was to increase over the course of the week long therapy, so that at the end, 150 cigarettes had to be choked down in the space of 75 minutes. Clearly any thought of smoking ever again would certainly be banished from the conscious and unconscious mind of a subject. Tough medicine for a tough addiction.

It was a bit tricker with alcoholism. Because alcoholics seem to adopt a somewhat free spirited attitude when in their cups, there penchant for the grape had to be reigned in somehow before they got totally cocked and skew the therapy results beyond repair. So in their case, thirsty volunteers would sit in a faux bar, complete with bartender, dim red lights and the mandatory jukebox crooning sad songs. Every time an a faux patron lifted a drink to his lips, a scientist behind closed curtains would press a button initiating a jolt of electricity to him prompting the drinker to think twice about the next mouthful should he be successful in getting this one down the hatch. I imagined a bar full of alcoholics, each spitting out drinks every time they tried to raise one up only to get zapped again, the bartender moving up and down the bar dodging each mouthful of Fleishmans as it came hurling towards him.

The salesman/scientist/therapist began to speak to me as if I had already signed a contract. He asked me to bring two packs of my favorite cigarettes, and not to buy anymore after that. These last two packs would go into the stockpile of fodder for other subjects to smoke in the booth, then waited for my move. Seemed fair, although I did have a fleeting notion that the tab for the therapy was hefty enough to provide the smokes. No matter. This bit of critical thinking was enough to satisfy my newfound sales resistance and I signed the contract and was set up to begin therapy the coming Monday at 730 pm.

During that weekend before the coming Monday, I smoke with the wild abandon of a person who knows that the end of his smoking world is at hand. Soon I would be a free man, no longer obsessed with yellow teeth, scent challenged breath, clothes and hair, and the whole list of other things feared and loathed about my smoking.

Monday. 7:30 pm. Inside the booth, I lit yet another cigarette and smoked it as quickly as I could at the command of the tinny voice behind me. Sticking the butt of it in the large bowl in front of me, I lit up another one using my free hand, obeying the voice. I had no trouble staying the course. Feeling strong and smelling like the bottom of an ashtray, I left the office for home. I don't want to smoke. It's working!

Tuesday 8 am. I want a cigarette with my coffee. I want a cigarette with my coffee bad. I want a cigarette all day, but I don't smoke.

Tuesday 7:30 pm. After asking me to slow it down some and stay with the program, I started to relax. After stepping out f the booth, no desire for a cigarette remains. It's working!

Wednesday 8 am. I want a cigarette with my coffee. I want a cigarette with my coffee bad. I want a cigarette all day, but I don't smoke. I think all day about tonight's therapy.

Wednesday 7:30 pm. I arrived at the clinic/office a half hour early and wait for the salesman/therapist/ scientist to show up. Reckoning that this session brings me something over 100 cigarettes in something under an hour, I swell with pride. I'm quitting smoking. Finally!

Thursday 8 am. I want a cigarette with my coffee. I want a cigarette with my coffee bad. I want a cigarette all day, but I don't smoke. I think all day about tonight's therapy and Salem cigarettes.

Thursday 7:30 pm. I spend the last 4 minutes in the booth not smoking. Having met the quota , the salesman/scientist/therapist holds to therapeutic guidelines and asks me to stop smoking. Leaving the booth, I'm downright proud of myself.

Friday 8 am. I want a cigarette with my coffee. I want a cigarette with my coffee bad. I want a cigarette all day, but I don't smoke. I think all day about tonight's therapy and Salem cigarettes. I think about me smoking in the booth tonight. I want to smoke in the booth now and the feeling of relief at finally being there is palatable

Friday 7:30 pm. After the session, sure enough, I don't want to smoke again and we congratulate ourselves on our success. I have not smoked for a full 5 days now, save for the ones in the booth in the evening, which were therapy and don't count. Free at last.

Monday following the end of therapy: After several calls during the weekend to the salesman/scientist/therapist he finally returns my call. I confess that I, in fact, started in again last Saturday evening around 7:30 and have been smoking ever since, now more than ever, and may I have my money back please. After sympathetically expressing his regrets in a tone reserved for parents speaking to their child after the kid has wet the bed, he informs me that, in fact, as per the contract, the guarantee is null and void IF the subject lights up without giving the salesman/scientist/therapist an opportunity to invite the recidivist to take the program again. After going thru that sequence of events 3 times consecutively, the subject is entitled to his money back. Otherwise, he would be glad to rerun the therapy at a special rate for the occasional ex subject who backslides.

I light another cigarette.

/n
I never knew that I was poor until high school, when I began to notice the direct correlation between the outward appearance of a boy and his popularity. Always neat and presentable and wearing the latest fashion, these guys always had a cadre of equally well dressed rich friends following them, smiling and clinging to every word that he,the glowing richest of the rich kids, spoke. Among that small crowd of hanger on's were invariably one or two rich debutantes, consciously or unconsciously honing their considerable seduction skills on the leader of the pack to the consternation of the rest of the group. Rich kids, like poor kids, all stuck together. But they were no more or less exclusionary that their counterpoints from the other side of town. They were just a nicer looking gang of kids. In my school, like others, the handful of rich kids sprinkled among the progeny of the huddled masses stuck out diamonds in a mud puddle.

I learned that rich people always wear expensive clothes. Even when they dress casually. The clothes could be worn or tattered, but one could still tell by the cut and fabric that these were not clothes that could be bought anywhere. Clearly, they did not shop at Sears. On several occasions, out of sheer curiosity, I tried to find a particular shoe or sweater that I had admired on one rich kid or another, but those articles were nowhere to be found except in the small exclusive men's store downtown.

The store could best be described as a masculine boutique. Small and narrow, quietly placed in between two nondescript gift stores, the tastefully lettered sign above it promised "Fine Clothing for Gentlemen". One summer day I gathered enough courage to actually go in. I opened the door and was pushed inside the dimly lit small store by the bright sunlight on my back. The salesman greeted me with a polite hello, but said nothing else. He was to let the magic of the store do the work for him.

To the right, rows of sports coats and suits stood sideways at attention against the wall, waiting in line. At the far end of this line was a tall 3 paneled mahogany framed looking glass, tall enough to cast the reflection of an entire man from head to toe. Each mirror was angled in such a way so that the customer could glance straight ahead or sideways in any direction and see how the prospective new piece of clothing looked. This arrangement was set upon a red velvet pedestal and lit dramatically from the top. The customer, with the help of the salesperson, now turned into trusted dresser to the King, would be helped into his new clothing before marching regally up the 2 stairs to see himself in the mirrors and receive his crowds.

On the back wall were shoes displayed on long narrow shelves covering the entire width of the wall. All one had to do was take a leisurely stroll from one end of the shelves to the other and he would be treated to every type of shoe imaginable, each cut from thick, soft, luxurious leather and each made by native hands in such far away places as Spain, Italy, Portugal. One was allowed to pick one up and then, feigning the manner of an expert in such arcane matters as fine footwear, secretly caress it like small girls do with cute puppies in the pet store. Each set had a discreet small round sticker stuck to the soles softly whispering the price of the footwear, should the admirer decide to bring this set of twins home.

The wall to the left had cubby holed shelves protecting neat stacks of colorful shirts each carefully folded, pinned, bagged in plastic and then catalogued according to size. Each one was at a price that I had once paid for a solid winter coat at Sears across the street. No matter, I spent a few hurried minutes finding a shirt that fit my particular fancy, then brought it up to the clerk and proudly paid for it.

From then on, whatever money I had was spent on clothes in that store, mostly shirts, ironically making myself even poorer than I was before. Mostly I bought shirts, one after another, my closet was soon filled to bursting with them. For me that closet was an oasis in the desert. Shirts were the most accessible given my cycle of delivering papers, saving and buying. Otherwise, pants, sport coats, suits and shoes were ordinarily too expensive even to save up for. I found that long before I had saved enough to buy a coat or a pair of shoes, I would succumb to the desire to get another shirt thereby putting my savings further away from it's goal once again.

But at least I was no longer a poor kid from the other side of the tracks. I was now a well dressed poor kid from the other side of the tracks and certain that those who didn't know me would be fooled into thinking that I was rich by my expensive disguise. This was enough to make me actually feel rich, and feeling rich was better than knowing I was poor, even though inside I was no more confident or assertive than I was before, but willing to fit my outward personality to the shirt I choose to wear that day and all that the shirt, to me, stood for. Now the pretence of being confident and assertive had some basis in reality- the expensive shirt on my back.

I've since come to believe that if there is one single justification for people being rich while the rest of the world goes mad with desire, it is this and only this. Money can, and will, buy at least a measure of health and happiness, genuine or otherwise, if only in that the minority of people, the rich, at least do not have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. After all, why should the whole world suffer to such degree as the poor do and what good would it do if it were possible or desirable? It's true that riches entail worry about preserving the same, but this worry is of a different tone and timbre than daily worry's that begin with not what's on the menu today, but is there anything on the menu today?

Apply that notion to the multitude of casual agents for mental distress, for the rich or the poor, and the same conclusion is apparent. Being rich is better than being poor. Duh. Everyone knows this, but most people, particularly those with a pot firmly established, are reluctant to say it plain and simple particularly if in the company of "less fortunate's", for fear of appearing callous or greedy or insensitive to the plights of the poor. Rather than say anything meaningful about poverty, wretched excess for example, they turn their, and your, attention to poverty and with as serious a humanitarian attitude as they can muster make some comment about poor people sprinkled with inspiring words about nobility, strength, admiration, etc.

This clever ruse makes any sort of logical self evident (critical) response from the listener sound as if the hearer favors having more than less (Good Heavens!) and, by inference, is unconcerned with those who have less of everything that makes life civilized, if not tolerable. In rarefied air, usually a silent beat occurs immediately after the "Poor Is Good" lecture points are exhausted, followed by another beat accompanied by a knowing nod from the listener, followed by another beat from both, then an abrupt change of subject by one or the other, sometimes both simultaneously. After a respectable lapse of time filled with idle chit chat, probably to get as far away from the aforementioned topic as they can, the conversation returns to some variation of the gathering and preservation of wealth.

/n

Some years ago I came across a book about positive thinking. I can't remember the title, but essentially it was a two hundred page assurance by the author that if you thought hard enough about something, anything, then that something, anything, would come true. Of course, the unwritten caveat was you had to think about it hard enough, indirectly bearing witness to the age old axiom, "ye reap what ye sow". This gave the book some vague, illusive veracity, although he did not go so far as to suggest that, over time, one's thinking abilities would grow to be so virile that you were obliged to "watch out what you wish for."

Anecdotal first person testimonials about the soundness of this approach to life abounded, each followed by the basic prescription that all one was to think a lot about his or hers hearts desire and, lo, in time, said object would present itself like manna from heaven waiting to plucked from the ground.

The author, (I suspect he had his tongue firmly in his cheek) carried the popular notion of positive thinking past it's far extreme. Requiring nothing other than the rigorous application of thought directed to the out-of-reach, one could be rich or happy or popular or anxiety free, etc, etc, or any combination thereof.

Hold it.

I had been thinking about those very things for a number of years and to date, not much has changed in that regard, short of a occasional upward spike in one of those areas in my life I have long held to be lacking.

This author had taken a useful but ill named concept, positive thinking, and turned it into excrement derived from the male bovine stinking with preposterous claims. In this new age, preposterous claims abound, but none I have read to date went this far to distort the very healthy and valid but wrongly worded concept of positive thinking.

The term positive thinking is unfortunate. It imply's that the mere act of thinking "positively" brings, or helps bring about desired results. Books with titles like "Think and Have It Now!" exploit the association between the words thinking and positive. It tries to seduce us into this intriguing but totally false notion that merely thinking will somehow have an effect on something. The sad part is that some may, in desperation, be twice seduced. First by purchasing the book, then by giving it their best shot and failing, therby adding to the long list of of disappointments that compelled then to buy the book in the first place.

I wish they would change the name of positive thinking to something else that would make it clear to everyone that it does not mean that by simply thinking some desired result will manifest itself.That's the stuff of stage magicians (Kreskin) and charlatans (too numerous to mention).

Maybe the term Positive Viewing might do the trick. Mysterious sounding enough to appeal to those who are intrigued by the mysteries of the paranomal, new agey enough to appeal to those who scorn anything tried and true, and open ended enough to at interest those who are scientifically minded among us, the term Positive Viewing seems to be less open to misinterpretation. Unlike the implication of passive activity contained in the phrase Positive Thinking, the phrase Positive Viewing speaks if a dynamic act of will, not of day dreaming.

Using Positive Viewings as a label for a style of active critical thinking slanted with the intent of warding off the insidious effects of it's collery, a person is urged to view things as being open to interpretation by them as positive, if for no other reason that they have a choice. This is an act of will, controllable by themselves. This approach, unlike an edict from above to arbitrarily "Think Positive, Dammit", is empowering, asking only that we look carefully at all sides of any chapter in our reality with an open mind as to it's value.

After some practice, the brightest side of situations are automatically seen, no doubt the intent of the originator of the phrase Positive Thinking. In the event of perceptions that are too awful to accept on any level, the person can draw his or her own lines in the sand about them and still remain a Positive Viewer. At least the decision about this or that reality being untenable was theirs alone and not repressed under the rule of Positive Thinking. That, in itself, is a positive.

/n

When I am furious with myself for some something I want to gather every material possession that I own, open the window and then toss them all out. This way, I imagine that I can start all over and be a completely new person, tricking myself into believing that as the "things" fly out the window, so will all my current distress. Although I have yet to actually carry through with this extreme solution to self hate, it's comforting to a have a contingency plan, should I ever feel I am bad enough to warrant such identity suicide.

I imagine that once I do this house cleaning, I can finally relax. Finally there will be nothing to fill my hours with distraction and sate my urge to keep busy. It's as if things had some magical power over me, leaving me a human doing as opposed to a human being. They do.

This urge to bathe myself in stuff has manifested itself over the years in countless artifacts and books, collected and forgotten, tossed into the corners of unused spaces in my home and head and left there, obsolete, no longer of any interest for me. I'm not sure that I'm unique in this. The things that I collect are symbolic to me as "me", each a tiny component of myself made real and tangible. My guess is that we all need this reassuring confirmation of our reality until we reach such enlightenment wherein we fully accept that reality itself, in particular our own, is an illusion While I can grasp the notion that everything outside of me is, in fact, an illusion, I have yet to understand how it is possible for one illusion, me, to observe another illusion, you.

Therefore, I can't get myself to toss or give my stuff away. I can't even come to putting my stuff where the rest of the world does theirs- in the front yard, in spring, next to a tag sale sign..

Here's what stops me from opening the window when I unhappy with some part of me. I am certain that if I toss my "stuff" out the window, then the "I " I wish to go with it WON"T go with it. I'll be treating the symptoms and will accomplish nothing other than creating a empty spaces in my house and mind where new echoes beg for new things to absorb them.

Occasionally demanding that I somehow apply myself to a higher standard than the rest of the "herd" is very telling, isn't it? The real question is this: why can I not allow myself to be human?

Do I flatter myself and secretly think I'm superhuman and capable of such power that I can arbitrarily begin myself anew?

Am I confused and claim that I am once both substantive and an illusion and so can change myself as easily as slipping a new photo in an old frame?

Or is my need to please others so demanding that it leaves no measure of time for myself and by myself unless I pay for it in hard cold guilt?